“Breed me, breed me, breed me,” I pant, clenching around his stiff cock, desperate to coax his cum out to flood my insides.
“Alessio,” he rasps my name through gritted teeth and slams me down hard onto his cock.
All it takes is the feeling of his cock pulsing against my rim, twitching inside me, to push me right over the edge with him. I sob as my cock throbs with intense, oversensitive waves of pleasure, spilling fresh streaks of my cum onto his belly and mine while his release fills me. I let myself imagine I can feel the wet spurts inside my guts. We grind and gasp and writhe against each other until we’re both breathless and completely spent.
I start to sag but catch myself. I don’t know if he wants me to lie on him, so I move to climb off. Spettro tightens his grip on my waist and holds me in place. When he’s sure I’m not going anywhere, he slides one hand up to the back of my head and guides it gently down onto his shoulder. I hold myself stifflyagainst him for a few seconds until I’m sure this is okay, and then I give in and let my weight melt against him.
His cock stays inside me, slowly softening, bound to slip out eventually. I clench again, trying to keep it inside as long as I can, and he drags his fingers through my hair in a surprisingly gentle way.
“A month ago, I knew exactly who I was. I didn’t have a past and I didn’t believe in the future, but Ifeltlike myself, whoever that was,” he says quietly, his voice slightly hoarse from moaning. “I’m not sure I know who I am at all anymore.”
I nuzzle my nose against the stubble on his jaw.
“You’re Spettro,” I say simply, and his lips actually twitch into an unexpected smile.
“Yes,” he agrees, turning his head slightly and kissing my forehead. “I am.”
Chapter
Twenty
GHOST
SPETTRO
I cruncha butterscotch between my teeth violently, grinding every last shard to sticky, sweet dust, then reach for another one. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve had, but this is the last one in my pocket, so I switch to pacing after I demolish it just like the last five or so.
I don’t know why I’m so fucking nervous. I’ve had guns held to my head on more than one occasion, looked into the eyes of cold-blooded predators without blinking, and walked through a packed clubhouse full of Sleepless Reapers without breaking a sweat, but meeting up with my own brother has my hands shaking and my heart stuck on sprint.
I press my palm against the center of my chest to feel the wild thud of my pulse against my sternum, like a bird trying to escape a cage.
It all happened so fast last time, I didn’t have time to overthink it or worry about it much, but my mind is racing nowwith all the what-ifs. What if he’s pissed or hurt that I can’t remember him or our childhood? What if he’s disappointed by the person I’ve become? What ifI’mdisappointed after all these years of his face being the only thing that gave me a shred of comfort?
“Spettro, hey.”
It’s only because of the years I’ve had to practice playing it cool and keeping my emotions in check that I don’t startle out of my skin at the sound of his voice. I stop pacing and turn to face him, shoving my hands into my pockets so he won’t see how shaky I am.
I don’t know if I unknowingly picked up my style from him or if it’s just a coincidence, but a small laugh escapes me as I look him up and down and realize we’re matching from our motorcycle boots to our ripped jeans, all the way up to our leather jackets and plain white T-shirts underneath. Sparrow smiles back at me, and I can see all the same nerves and wariness I’m feeling reflected in his expression. It’s surprisingly comforting to know I’m not the only one shitting myself right now.
We both hesitate for half a second and then step towards each other at the same time. I take my hands out of my jacket pockets, my leather gloves in place as usual, and I pull him into a hug. This one is much more brief than the one we shared at his apartment, but it sinks down into my bones just the same, making me ache for a home I never missed before.
We break apart and I catch him quickly wiping the back of his hand across his cheek as he turns his head slightly away from me and nods towards the entrance to the large park behind me. Middle Park is two square miles of green space in a sea of buildings and traffic jams. I’ve called benches here home more than a few times over the past seven years, when I couldn’t getenough cash together for a month of rent or couldn’t find a place that was willing to overlook my lack of legal employment or ID.
“Hope this is okay?” he asks. “I thought it might be less awkward to talk and catch up if we don’t have to sit across a table and stare at each other while we pretend to drink overpriced coffee.”
I chuckle and nod. “Yeah, it’s great. I’m already sweating my ass off though.”
I shrug out of my jacket, and he does the same as we head into the park. There are plenty of people here on a warm summer afternoon, but it’s big enough that it doesn’t feel crowded. We walk down the jogging path, staying off to one side so we won’t get in anyone’s way, and for a few minutes, we just listen to the birds and get used to existing in the same space.
“I still can’t remember anything,” I say eventually, hoping to sidestep any uncomfortable moments where he asks me if I remember this or that from our childhood.
“Nothing?” he asks.
I start to shake my head, then stop. “Mostly nothing. I remember the night I died in perfect fucking detail, and a few weeks ago I had this flashbulb memory of the night I fell in with the Reapers. Sometimes I get a small sense ofknowing, like when I saw your sparrow tattoo and felt like it must have been my favorite bird, but… yeah, mostly nothing.” I clear my throat. “I’ve remembered your face all these years, I just didn’t know who you were.”
He’s quiet, and I get another one of those feelings, that sense of knowing again that’s untethered from anything concrete. I think this has happened more than I’ve realized over the past seven years. I'm just noticing it more now with my brother here, when I’m trying so hard to remember anything. But there’s a small sense of who I used to be, the life I used to have, buried in the back of my mind.
“We were really close, right?” I squint a little, trying to grab on to the elusive wisps of my thoughts. “And our parents kind of sucked?”